Bathing the Lion

by Jonathan Carroll

  “Wow! Well, thank you. I mean, I wasn’t expecting you to—” Surprised and overcome by the kindness of the offer, Vanessa was at a loss for what to say.

  “You’re welcome. See you tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Jane did not like Vanessa Corbin but was indebted to her. Two years before, her bar was failing. She’d invested every cent of her money and time into it. But like so many bars and restaurants, Jane’s did not possess the mysterious ineffable magic always needed to bring customers in to a new place. She had studied interior design in college so from the first day the builders started work on the space she knew exactly what kind of feeling and look she wanted them to create. She hired a good piano player from the music department at the local college, a skilled cook, and a bartender who had worked for fifteen years at the Locke-Ober restaurant in Boston before retiring to this idyllic Vermont town. What more could she have done? Jane had planned every detail and saved up for years to do this. The bar had been her life’s dream, but as the dream evaporated, she didn’t know how to save it.

  One night a pretty, overweight woman sat down at the piano and began playing the song “I Wish I Were in Love Again.” After she sang the first verse, most of the people in the room had gone quiet and were listening. By the time she finished the song, almost everyone applauded enthusiastically. She was that good. She looked at Jane and asked if it was all right to continue. Jane steepled her fingers as if praying and said, “Please!”

  The singer was exceptional. Not only did she play the piano beautifully, but her voice covered three octaves. After she’d sung five songs ranging from standards to pop to country and western, she asked the audience if they had any requests. She was obviously used to doing this. Her demeanor was funny, intimate, and completely relaxed in front of listeners. Someone called for Steve Winwood’s “Back in the High Life Again” and she knocked the song out of the park.

  For an hour this big stranger did what Jane Claudius had been unable to do in all the time she had run her bar: she made it magical. When the woman finished with a slow, dreamy rendition of the ’50s classic rock song “He’s So Fine,” the whole room was hers; they loved her.

  She walked back to a table and sat down next to a thin bald man dressed in an elegant pinstripe suit and open-necked white shirt with silver cufflinks. He kissed her on the cheek. Smiling, she put her forehead on his arm. Jane went over to them and signed to the bartender to bring drinks. She asked if she could join the couple. Both seemed happy for her company.

  They were the Corbins, Vanessa and Dean. Along with a business partner, Dean owned the stylish men’s store on the town’s main street. Like Jane, the Corbins were ex–New Yorkers who had gotten fed up with city life after having been robbed twice. They moved here to Vermont because Dean had attended college here years before and both of them loved the intimate yet urbane feel of this town.

  Despite its size, it was a wealthy community. The college was small but exclusive and cost a fortune to attend. Most of the students had a lot of pocket money, and in winter the skiing in the area was so good that expensive sports cars and SUVs with Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York license plates lined the streets. A bar like Jane’s or an upscale clothing store fit well into the demographic.

  They chatted for a long time. Vanessa didn’t say much about herself, but she did most of the talking. Only late in the conversation did it come out she had been a successful club singer in New York and had even released a CD. After another round of drinks and some more talk, Jane asked if Vanessa would consider performing here a few nights each week. The pay wouldn’t be as good as in New York but Jane would improve it if business picked up.

  Vanessa looked at Dean. Smiling, he touched her hand and said, “It’s your decision, sweetheart.”

  She continued looking at him, her questioning eyes examining his whole face as if she were looking for any telltale traces there that betrayed what he’d just said to her. When she was convinced he really meant it, she turned to Jane. “I get scared. It’s one of the reasons why I stopped singing and we moved here.”

  Dean began to speak but Vanessa shook her head to stop him. She wanted to talk; she wanted to tell Jane this information. “It started a couple of years ago for no reason and then got a lot worse. I never even knew what a panic attack was but suddenly I began having them regularly, but only when I’d perform. I’d be singing along fine when BAM—everything inside me froze and my hands started shaking so badly I couldn’t play. Why? I don’t know. It was terrifying.”

  Jane looked away in embarrassment, but she also admired this stranger for being so frank. Looking again, she saw Vanessa was staring at her drink, trying to keep control.

  “I love to sing; I love it more than anything in the world. You know why, Jane? Because there is all of this incredible music out there which to me is like the most delicious variety of ingredients imaginable for a recipe—and I get to cook it. My suppliers are The Beatles and Gershwin and Noël Coward and a hundred other geniuses. They give me all their best … and I get to prepare it my way and then serve it to the world.” Vanessa paused, took a sip of her drink, and squeezed her husband’s hand. “So when this fear started happening every time I performed, I went to an analyst; two, in fact. They gave me pills … I took them and had things pretty much under control physically. But whenever I sang there was always a very good chance I’d freeze up again and that ruined it for me. I used to love to perform but now I was afraid.”

  Jane was confused. “But you sounded great out there just now—so strong and confident.”

  “Sure, because it was a onetime spontaneous thing. There was no pressure. On the spur of the moment I sat down at a piano and played. It felt wonderful—like old times. I loved it—I love to sing! It used to be my life.”

  “It still is!” Dean protested.

  Vanessa smiled ruefully at him. “I hope so. I hope this is just a phase; my scaredy-cat phase.” She stood up and walked toward the toilet. Jane and Dean watched her go. Halfway there, a woman stopped her to congratulate Vanessa on her performance.

  When she was gone, Jane said, “Jeez, what a rotten thing to happen: your own ghosts scare away the thing you love.”

  Dean played with a cufflink and nodded. “She was on her way to the top. Everyone who heard her perform said she was going to make it big and I believe it. She kept getting better and better. Audiences love her because she’s so friendly and at ease with them. You saw it.”

  “I did. What does she do in the meantime, since you moved here?”

  “Fixed up our house after we bought it. She’s an excellent cook, although it doesn’t interest her; it’s just another one of her natural talents. She reads, plays the piano for herself…” His voice trailed off, defeated. “To make things worse, after she started having those panic attacks we were robbed a second time. It was brutal and really traumatized her; three junkies with a hunting knife held us up on the street near our apartment in Brooklyn. It just broke her. It was a bad time for both of us and we definitely needed a big change. I suggested we try living up here in Vermont because we always came for the skiing and she loved the town as much as I did.”

  “What do I love?” Vanessa returned to the table and sat down.

  “This town. I was telling Jane how we ended up here.”

  “Did you tell her about the guys with the big knife?”

  Dean nodded.

  “An idea just came to me in the bathroom, Jane: what if I sing here without working for you, without a formal job? What if I come in when I feel I just want to sing, like today?”

  Jane and Dean exchanged puzzled looks. “How do you mean?”

  Vanessa pointed across the room at the piano. “It felt really good playing tonight. Normal, happy—the way I want things to be. No pressure, no strings—just sit down and play because I felt like it. Maybe if I do it regularly here, I’ll get back in the groove. And if that happens, then I can work for you on a more formal basis.”

&nbs
p; “Are you sure you want to?”

  Vanessa put both hands in her black hair and pushed it back and forth. “No, I’m not sure of anything anymore, but it’s worth a try.”

  * * *

  It was one of the best and worst things to happen to Jane Claudius. In the following months, Vanessa regularly performed at Jane’s a couple of nights a week, usually at either end—Monday and Friday or Saturday. Jane never knew how long she would play—sometimes only half an hour, other times she’d perform for two hours straight. Word got around fast—more and more people came to listen to the charismatic new singer. In retrospect it was very good at the beginning that no one ever knew when Vanessa would show up at the bar because the elusiveness added to her mystique and allure.

  There was never any fanfare when she showed up. Usually Jane didn’t even know Vanessa had arrived except if the regular pianist were performing, he would immediately stop playing. A short silence followed and then Vanessa would begin. The feeling in the room changed right away. It became more intense and unified, as if the audience simultaneously turned their full attention to the same single thing and focused only on it. The singer didn’t appear to notice. Typically she began her set with something fanciful or funny, like her rendition of “Yellow Submarine.” Perhaps an obscure Frank Loesser, Arthur Siegel, or Rodgers and Hart song no one knew but immediately liked when she sang it. If the crowd was restless or particularly boisterous she often started out very sexy and sassy with songs like “Urgent” or The Pretenders’ great ’80s standard “Brass in Pocket.” Inevitably the few people who hadn’t been listening to her suddenly were.

  Vanessa had the important ability to quickly sense the mood or personality of a crowd and play right to the heart of it. If there were lots of college kids in the bar, customarily she would do more songs they’d likely know, but always with her inventive spin on them, her signature arrangements that made the music sound new and compelling to everyone. However, if she sensed the room was sad or withdrawn no matter who was there, she performed mostly piano music like excerpts from Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concerts or George Winston and then slowly segue into tunes that definitely belonged there too. She never tried to lift or change a mood; only embellished it with her smart and thoughtful choices.

  One late night in the middle of a song called “Dancing with Ghosts,” a woman sitting by herself suddenly stood up, said very loudly “Yes, you’re exactly right!” and hurried out of the bar crying. Dramatic as it was, few people seemed to notice, caught up as they were in their own thoughts and blues, enhanced by this empathetic singer.

  At the beginning, Dean always accompanied Vanessa to the bar, sat through the performances, and then took her home afterward. But after a while she started coming in alone. When Jane asked about it, Vanessa beamed and said, “I told him I don’t think he needs to babysit me anymore.”

  The crowds grew and so did her confidence. She played longer sets and began performing one more night a week. Jane was careful and solicitous. She watched Vanessa closely and entered Dean’s telephone number on her phone’s speed dials just in case she needed to reach him quickly.

  At the same time, Jane was working twice as hard to keep up with the large increase in customers. She had always firmly believed if people would only visit her bar a couple of times and get a feel for its ambience, they would want to return regularly. Her new singer was the catalyst. What heartened Jane most was after Vanessa had been there a while and established a fixed schedule, the place was still almost full on the nights she didn’t perform.

  Of course there was a “but” in all this. There’s always a “but” in any triumph. The nasty little bone in the delicious piece of fish, the dangerous slick spot on the just-waxed gleaming floor, the “no” hiding under “yes’s” bed, waiting for the right moment to spring out and bite you. The worm in Jane’s beautiful new apple was paradoxically Vanessa’s success. As time passed and her confidence grew, the talented singer became demanding, difficult, and in due course the most exasperating kind of diva.

  At first it was small understandable things—adjust the lighting on her three different times, buy expensive new microphones, tune the piano, and then have someone else tune it again because Vanessa was still dissatisfied with the sound.

  Then one day she “suggested” Jane fire the nice, very capable pianist who filled in for Vanessa on her days off. This man was also a big fan of Vanessa, which made it even harder for Jane to understand why she wanted him out. When asked, the singer tsked like a petulant child and muttered, “It’s difficult to explain.”

  Jane said no. Vanessa’s face tightened but she said nothing.

  When she came into the bar two nights later, she played for exactly twenty-nine minutes and then stopped. By then she usually played for at least an hour. Passing Jane who was sitting at the bar, the two women exchanged stony glances. The next two times she performed that evening, Vanessa repeated this abbreviated twenty-nine-minute set. The audience didn’t appear to notice because luckily it was a raucous crowd content with its own company.

  Coincidentally it happened to be payday. After the third twenty-nine-minute set, Jane went back to her office and rewrote the singer’s salary check for the week. At the end of the evening she handed it over as always in a blank envelope. As if expecting something, Vanessa opened the envelope immediately and saw her employer had reduced her salary accordingly.

  “I waited my whole life to have this place, Vanessa. You’ve only been here three months but you’re already trying to tell me how to run it. I won’t let you; it’s neither right nor fair. I love having you here and we both know how much you’ve helped my business, but you cannot do this.” Then Jane smiled. It was cordial and warm, with not the slightest bit of challenge or scold in it. A smile that said, let’s drop this right now and move forward, on to more important things we both want.

  The smile more than anything else disarmed Vanessa. She backed off and things were all right for a while afterward. But as she grew more self-assured as a performer, her selfishness manifested itself in other unpleasant ways.

  In contrast, the longer Jane knew him, the more she liked Dean Corbin. He was kind, intelligent, and very good company. But when she spoke to him about Vanessa’s bad behavior, he only made excuses for his wife’s conduct and downplayed every example of bad behavior she brought to his attention. He believed you must treat artists differently and make allowances for their shortcomings, because in the end their work brings so much joy to others. Jane delicately argued talent is no excuse for meanness. But she couldn’t convince him to talk to his wife about this matter. Luckily at a certain point Vanessa’s divatude leveled off at borderline bearable, but the two women never stopped sparring and challenging each other.

  Whenever it got to be too much, Jane went skating. She kept a pair of inline skates under the desk in her office. A few nights a week, as soon as the bar closed at 2 A.M., she would change clothes, put on her skates, and roll out the back door. One of her favorite things was to skate late at night down the town streets when they were empty and still. She had grown up in Brooklyn and as a girl went with her father almost every weekend to the legendary roller-skating rink on Empire Boulevard. All her life she had skated and as she grew older, it became as much therapy as a hobby for her. Sometimes she skated to think through problems in her life. Other times she willed her mind to empty so she could simply enjoy the feel of her body slicing through the air, wheels whizzing across the ground beneath her feet. It was why she was at the shopping mall when she met Vanessa after her confrontation with Dean. Jane had been on her way to buy a protective helmet. She had recently begun learning how to speed ice-skate at the college and her instructor was adamant she wear the proper protection.

  Walking now toward the sporting goods store, she wondered what had caused Dean Corbin to tell Vanessa he’d had enough of her.

  Jane’s partner, Felice, believed it is almost always something small or unexpected that ends a relationship. In ge
neral the hammer blow does not come from things like finding out your partner has been unfaithful, or they become unbearable behind closed doors. Those revelations may knock you to your knees, but it is actually seeing the secret snapshot of them with the other person, both looking so happy, so completely stoned on love or sex, that finishes it. Or the slight wicked smile on their face after they have been intentionally cruel to you. The end, like God, is in the details.

  In this instance, Jane would have been truly surprised to learn something she’d said was the tipping point for Dean. The night before, while chatting at the bar with Vanessa about relationships and sex, Jane had said offhandedly, “Most men think they are good drivers. Most women think they’re good in bed. They aren’t.” The line made Vanessa laugh, but it sure didn’t tickle Dean when it was repeated to him earlier that morning.

  “Were you talking to Vanessa Corbin?”

  Jane turned around and there was Felice. As always, she was delighted to see her love. “I was. How’d you know I was here?”

  Felice handed her a brown bag containing a fresh blueberry muffin the size of a shot put and a small cup of black coffee—Jane’s favorite breakfast. “I was getting something to eat in the food court and saw you two talking. Then I remembered you were coming here this morning.”

  Felice managed the bookstore on the next floor up in the mall. It’s how they had originally met—luckily for both women, Jane was an avid reader. She happened to visit the store a month after Felice took over as manager there. The very first time she saw Jane, standing in front of the fiction section with her arms already full of novels, Felice said to herself, “If there is a God, that woman is gay.”

  “What did Mrs. Diva have to say? Didn’t you just see her last night?” Felice disliked Vanessa because Jane disliked her.

  “Her husband wants to split up.”

  Felice grabbed and squeezed Jane’s arm. “No way! You always said he adored her.”